Ladies Who Lunch

It's a very strange feeling to be in the middle of the worst credit crisis and a serious recession and suddenly find that you have more leisure time (and that you're actually enjoying yourself) than you've had in a long time.

Since I moved back to California and started looking for a job, several unexpected things have happened:

the university where I'm spending most of my energy searching has instituted a hiring freeze;
I can't get an emergency credential for substitute teaching until January when I get to take a basic competency exam and undergo a background check;
and a couple of writing gigs are taking longer to put together than I'd anticipated.

So while my deeply ingrained Protestant work ethic tells me I'm not trying hard enough to become gainfully employed, the more pragmatic side is telling me it's time to relax a little and enjoy the holidays without all the frenetic multitasking that usually involves.

Having this unanticipated gift of time on my hands, I've also been able to reconnect with a whole social network of moms like me, who are not working outside the home, and whose children are old enough that their mothers can find time for coffee, a game of Mahjong, a long walk, or the occasional leisurely lunch that doesn't have one glancing at the clock because you have to get back to the office.

It's such fun to be able to talk to other women without kids interrupting, or having to rush to get to work or having to rush to pick them up from daycare or lessons or practice.

I've discovered the guilty pleasure of having a whole space of hours in the day when I can finally spend at least some of time just the way I want to, and boy do I feel guilty about it. I feel so bourgeois, so decadent, so far from the woman who taught Feminist Theory and who still writes letters supporting the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

“What's happening to me?” I wonder. “Am I turning into my mother? Will I start 'getting my hair done' every week and going to Tuesday Musicale?” It's a scary thought.

My whole life I've been going to school and working and juggling family and work to establish a professional identity, and now when that identity is temporarily in abeyance, I feel an odd disjunction between how people look at me and who I really feel I am.

No longer just “X, Y or Z's mom” or “Dr. Wahl,” I have the sense that I can just be “Beth,” someone's friend or confidante, the lady who walks her dog to the park every day, the woman who chats with the cashiers at the coffee shop, and who actually finds time to read the newspaper or listen to nearly as much NPR as she wants.

So let my Puritan conscience take a nap for a while; I have faith that soon enough, the job will be found, the hours will fill up again, and once again, I'll be facing a balancing act again and resisting the pressure to rush, rush, rush through life. For now I am one of the ladies who lunch, who can take life at a slower pace and savor all its simple, daily pleasures. For now I am happy having the time to just be me.